Speak Up

I was born in 1991, the very end of the 80's (the party years) right on the cusp of the brilliant 90's. I was born in California to a 16 year old girl from Colorado who fell deeply in love with a 20 year old meth addict. My mother dropped out of school when she met my father and became pregnant. She wanted to be with him, so she uprooted her life and left my loving grandparents for a life in sunny California! I can't imagine that life was all that sunny in those few months that my mother was cooped up with an addict and his low-life friends while pregnant with a baby. Never-the-less, there she was. Her and her very underdeveloped mind made the decision to not only experiment with acid while pregnant but became a regular user of meth during the period of gestation. I was born, unknown to my grandparents or anyone else, addicted to meth. Naturally, I don't remember actually being addicted to the drug, but I remember all too well what the drug did to my relationship with my mother, my sister's relationship with my mother and the long term learning disabilities I have suffered from this drug. I don't want to delve into too much personal detail so I'll be brief; my mother was psychotic. I don't use the term "psychotic" here lightly or in jest and there is absolutely no mocking undertone. My mother was literally mentally ill because of this drug. She would dress me up in beautiful dresses and fix my hair. We would take long walks and she would show me off to all of her friends. She would refer to me as her little barbie doll. Some nights she would make me sleep with her because she was too lonely. She would do all of these things and the next moment she would yell at me to clean our disgusting house. She would spend hours in her room listening to heavy metal music, screaming and pulling her hair out of her head. She would smash things around the house and on many occasions had tried to jump out of her bedroom window (on the second floor of the old house). I never really got to know who my mother was. From the time she met my father (who split and I have only met once in my lifetime) until now (21 years later) she has been abusing this drug, completely erasing the person she was and the mother she could have been. There were often strange men in the house. Sleeping on the couches. Sleeping in her bed. It wasn't until years later she told me she would sell her body for the drug. With a 5 year old girl in the house. People often ask me how it makes me feel and I just smile and say "Fine, I don't really care about her anymore." But this is, I suppose, the best place to be honest. It destroys me every single day when I wake up and every night before I go to bed. I think of the numerous learning and emotional disorders I have suffered in my life due to the drug and the absence of my mother. When I was 10 my grandparents took me in and I love them dearly, but my the burden of thinking my own mother picked a DRUG over me, it's a heavy burden indeed. I feel inadequate often times. I worry about her everyday because of the people she's around. When she does talk to me, she blames me for the way her life is. She hates me. She tires to be close to my sister but closes me out. I have since cut her out of my life for obvious reasons but if you asked how often I cry about it I would tell you honestly a few times every week. Meth destroys potential for anyone to ever be able to love you. The damage done to (not yourself) your family, the ones closest to you while on this drug is so far beyond repair that when you're finally ready to quit there are very little reasons to anymore. Writing on this site isn't going to change anyone's mind or make a difference in my mother. (she'll never even see it) but maybe someday someone will read this and take something from it. I am unable to love the very person who gave me life because of meth. Because of meth, I will never really know who my mother is and how wonderful she could have been.